Has anyone ever seen a medium? AIBU to now believe that some people have psychic ability?

[abitspooked]

I recently saw a psychic medium and I sound say about 80% of what she said was accurate. Some things were actually startling. She knew nothing about me before I went in, except for my first name. I can’t believe some if the things she could see inc. names and details about relatives on the ‘other side’ (even though these are from a different culture / language). Other very accurate details too. I couldn’t believe it.

Had anyone else had a similar encounter? I was open minded before I went but am now convinced that some people have psychic ability, based on my own direct experience. AIBU?

I had some medium training when I was younger.

(Got into spiritualism for a while when I was feeling lost and lonely and when I was young I searched for meaning in religions etc)

I did a few readings. Never for money or any other form of recompense. My intentions & motivation were completely innocent & the only self-interest was, I suppose, in seeking for a deeper meaning in life (not fool enough to think that everyone who reads this will believe me when I say that).

I don't know a huge amount about cold reading, but looking back I think much of what I picked up on was natural intuition & the ability to read body language. I don't mean in such a way as meant to deceive, but more like when you notice someone is tense or worried.

Everyone experiences a full range of emotions in life so it's not hard for the person getting a reading to read more meaning into what is being said.

That said, I've also experienced things I've not been able to explain. Examples: Images flashing up in my mind for example which are seemingly totally random. And unlike what one pictures when one thinks about something in the normal course of thinking or remembering, they've been very sharp and appeared on a white background. Each time when this occurred and I mentioned it - however odd or bizarre it was to me - it really struck a chord with the person I was talking to and seemed to be especially specific to them. Could only go on their affirmations - didn't make any sense to me.

So, who knows where those came from and these days I don't know what I believe. I've had a few readings myself in the past, some brought me comfort, most seemed like rubbish.

Just sharing to give a different perspective. Don't have any skin in the game one way or another. But always on these threads the over-riding opinion is that 'mediums' are charlatans, cruel and deliberately deceitful, preying on the vulnerable etc, when - sure some are - but I think others are just people who have a genuine belief system and are acting in good faith.

Mediumship readings are mutually-affirming when you think about it...if someone is acting in good faith they're not likely to realise they've inadvertently done a cold-reading if (1) no one tells them they're wrong or (2) it affirms their belief system

'Mediumship' woolly and vague... I believe most people who do readings do so with good (or at least neutral) intentions - same with anything.

(Apologies for dreadful sentence structure, I should have been asleep ages ago and am too tired & sore-eyed to be looking at a screen, let alone one on an ancient mobile! )

I never believed in any of this stuff, I was convinced that it was all made up nonsense.

But then…. I visited a psychic who said I would meet a tall dark handsome man, get married and have babies (a boy and a girl) and would travel overseas. She ended the session saying I might also be a bit psychic.

I was young but believed her and thought I’d try to use my psychic abilities to contact my grandparents who died.
My grandmothers name was Mary and I tried but she didn’t come through, my grandmother was called Henry.

After my failed attempts at whispering “Mary? Mary are you there?”
I called “Henry? Henry…”

Well I REALLY wish I hadn’t. Suddenly I heard a man singing “I’m Henry the 8th I am, Henry the 8th I am, I am.
I got married to the widow next door, she’s been married 7 times before”

This went on all night and it taught me a lesson not to dabble in the unknown.
If anyone reading feels tempted to explore their psychic side then please heed this as a warning 😏😂.

I haven’t, but think it’s no coincidence that two, happily-married ladies I knew that visited a medium (years and places apart) ended up getting divorced after the medium(s) told them that they wouldn’t always be with their husbands in life…
Be careful what you wish for…

But as you say yourself, only unhappy people, who are grieving or dissatisfied with their lives in some way, go to ‘psychics’, the vast majority of the time. The ‘medium’ in your friends cases was aware of this. She didn’t ‘create’ the dissatisfaction.

Most are scammers. Some genuinely think they're psychic but aren't. I can't say if there are genuine ones or not as I've never met one.

A very stable, reasonable colleague was one. She explained how most learn to read your reactions & some can apparently see the surface stuff. Of course she was the real deal... except.... She wrote a whole prediction for DH & I 20 years ago. Not one bit came true. I know she honestly believed it, but she claimed DH would start a successful business, we'd drive a luxury car, etc. & MIL would come into money. I didn't take it seriously but trusted her so thought... maybe.... None of it happened & although I didn't actually believe it would, it just goes to show sometimes psychics scam themselves.

Just treat yourself to a nice lunch instead of giving a charlatan your money.

But nobody divorces a husband they love because Madam Zelda told them they were going to!

The only time in my life I saw a ‘psychic’, I specifically asked whether I was going to study more, and whether I would live overseas again. She said a firm no to both, and told me I was going to move in with my boyfriend, have a baby within the year and we were going to start a business together. What actually happened was that I won a postgraduate scholarship to study abroad a couple of months later, ended things with the boyfriend as I was leaving the country, lived and worked overseas for almost 20 years, and only had a baby, with a different man, to whom I am now married, fifteen years after her ‘prediction’.

They are all scammers.

Every. Single. One.

Cold reading. Simple and lucrative. They're all scammers.

To me, I just don't see the point. There's nothing they can tell me I want to know. If it's a genuine ability why aren't they choosing to solve unsolved crimes by asking the dead who killed them, where they are buried and where to find good evidence so justice can be served? Why are they instead charging joe public £££ to tell them not to worry, their dear old mother is at rest now and says to be at peace or whatever.

I saw one once who said my aunty x came through. I said that was impossible as my aunty x was still alive. She told me to ask my parents. Turns out one of them had a twin sibling I'd never known about who died when they were young, called x. There's no way someone can randomly guess that. I didn't even know so certainly could have given anything away.

And if your mother had said "No, that doesn't mean anything to me", you'd just have forgotten about it. It's a no-risk ploy from the medium. Say something weird to all your clients. To those that it doesn't mean anything, they'll go 'huh', move on and forget about it. But for one in a hundred where a lucky guess strikes, you've now got a believer who will tell everyone that mediums are real.

The chances pf them making such a lucky guess are statistically virtually impossible. Knowing the name, knowing it's an aunty.

I'm not saying they're all real. But I do believe some are genuine.

That is called a self - fulfilling prophecy. If they believed the medium, they may have thought ‘what’s the point keeping the marriage going if we’re not going to be together forever’. Plus, you only know what you see, they might not have been as happy as you thought. Suggestion can be very powerful, don’t under estimate it. Psychics and mediums are a load of scammers that play with people’s psyche.

It's laughably easy to trick people with cold reading.

There is not a single genuine psychic. Not one.

The chances of a ‘medium’ saying ‘ I have a message from your mother’s long-dead twin, who has never been mentioned to you, but would have been your Auntie Persephone had she lived beyond her fatal attack of measles in 1946, and she says to tell your mother her lost engagement ring is inside the grandfather clock’ and being correct on all counts is practically nil, absolutely.

The chances of a ‘medium’ saying she had a family member called Random Common Name X (and that it’s a common name is suggested by that person having a different, living, relative of the same name) coming through are very high, though. Especially as Dead Relative X doesn’t seem to have said anything significant, and ‘Ask your parents’ is an easy get-out for a ‘medium’ who has guessed wrong, allowing for any number of long-dead distant relatives, stillborn siblings etc. It’s not much more impressive than ‘I’ve got an elderly man here for you, chest problems, initial maybe N, or M?’

There are definitely a lot of scammers out there who cold read. I have been to a few and the scammers definitely are a lot vaguer and say things like "does that make sense to you", "do you understand that", "I have an older lady here like a grandmother figure"

I have been to a couple that were more specific and if they were scamming, they very coincidently got things right.

A few examples from ones I have been to of vagueness and more specificity:
One lady said to me (she used specific names but I have just used initials so as not to identify myself!) I have A here and she wants to say hello to M and D - my nanny was called A, father was the M and brother the D. The exact names but common names so I wasnt too convinced, she could have been guessing.

This same lady told my mother "I have P here and she is dancing around you saying she is 7 years older than you but still looks better". The P was a more unusual name and was the name of my mother's sister who was 7 years older and would have made such a comment!
Same lady told my friend the minute she walked in that she had her dad there and he was making comments about her mother A's leg. Friend was mid 20's so young to have lost parent, her mother was called A and had issues with her leg from diabetes - possibly a good guess??

She told another friend that she had a young boy called Christopher there and he was asking her to tell his mother that the new baby would be fine and was a girl. Her friend lost her 2 year old Christopher, was pregnant and worried about the new baby dying, it was a girl but she didnt know then.

Another was a group session, he called on my BIL to say he had a DM (gave first and middle name both of which were correct) there. He spoke about his funeral and a picture that was in the church in a specific room - turned out to be true. He described a photo that they had enlarged of his family and an incident on a boat that had happened. It was very specific and again quite coincidental if true.

If she is so talented, why did she got things wrong on 20% of what she said? What did she say that was wrong?

I do wonder why a dead person, given the opportunity to communicate with a living relative wouldn’t give over more concrete information to verify their identity.

Instead of their first name, or initial, why not say “It’s John Smith, my date of birth is 1 January 1940, I want to contact my wife Helga, seat 37, row D”.

Also if they died of a heart attack, why not actually say that, rather than giving the medium a feeling in their chest?

This same lady told my mother "I have P here and she is dancing around you saying she is 7 years older than you but still looks better". The P was a more unusual name and was the name of my mother's sister who was 7 years older and would have made such a comment!

Did you witness this or did your mother tell you afterwards? Because it's very easy to embellish a story afterwards, even if unintentionally. For instance rather than saying "7 years older" she may have said "older", but the story gets better in the telling. Possibly quite without intending to.

There's a fascinating study continuing in the US, where the same people are interviewed each year about their memories of 9/11. 20 years later there are huge differences between fresh memories and what they now say they remember, because the mind is filling in with things they have heard, or read about, or were told about by other people. To the extent that they now 'remember' things that they never themselves witnessed.

Why people come in threads like this to say you don't believe nobody cares what you believe in it's for the people who do believe, taking up the thread with your annoying unnecessary comments

I mean possibly, but it's never been proven and I wouldn't advise anyone spend their money on it.

I spent thousands over years and really wanted to believe because of the mental state I was in at the time but with all my experience of it, nah, not a believer. Gave it a go but the 'evidence' was underwhelming to say the least.

This is a public discussion forum where there will be various opinions, and the question was ‘’AIBU to believe in psychic ability’’ so obviously some will say no. If you want everyone to say yes, find an echo chamber.

Humans are very easily manipulated and tricked, you just have to have some knowledge of psychology. It’s not some gift, it’s a con. For a start, most of the time, the people who go to readings do, on some level, believe it or want to believe it or they wouldn’t go in the first place, so the fact they are sat in front of the psychic even having a reading is half the battle.

If you’re happy to have your mind played with and be parted with your cash because you’re going to a psychic when you’re mental health is bad, crack on. Doesn’t make it any more real. I think it’s actually extremely unethical.

The OP literally started a thread to ask others' opinions on mediums and psychic ability.

Because they are directly responding to the OP asking whether she’s being unreasonable to believe in psychic ability?